I managed to catch Toy Story 3 yesterday while my class crashed the sec 4s’ Sunday School class outing (this usually happens…). Then we went to partyworld KTV. I’m not so much of a karaoke fan, but after going for karaoke twice in the past 2 weeks, with nearly the same people, I’ve gotten more and more ok with it. There are 2 major problems I face – 1. I don’t know many pop songs; 2. It takes me more time to read the Chinese lyrics so by the time I finish reading, I usually miss the whole line already. But I can safely say I’ve improved a bit… I think.

I was thinking, if karaoke included Christian songs, it’d probably be much easier for people like me who have limited exposure to the secular world of pop music. While scrolling through the long list of songs, I caught sight of Amazing Grace in various versions. But then a counter-thought quickly came to my mind. How can people just sing “sacred” songs just for the sake of pleasure and the fun of hearing their voice on a booming surround-sound system? That leads me to a further point – when we worship, is it usually how nice the music sounds that comes first? I remember while studying for O level music, I came across an interesting fact - that the prosperity of towns usually depended on the quality of their church music. Weird as it may seem, it might be similar for most churches today. I’m pretty sure if some churches did without their rock band for a while, the number of attendees would probably fall. If I scale it down to let’s say, no piano in my church (it has happened in dire situations before), the same phenomenon would probably occur. But this is also why I salute the English assembly for being able to preserve the long tradition of not using any instruments at all for every main service.

So what’s my main point? Music was created to enhance worship, not the other way round. I admit that sometimes, I do fall into that trap. But I hope I’ll grow out of it completely.